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What, then, are the several entities observable in this
plurality?
We have found Substance [Essence] and life simultaneously present
in Soul. Now, this Substance is a common property of Soul, but
life, common to all souls, differs in that it is a property of
Intellect also.
Having thus introduced Intellect and its life we make a single
genus of what is common to all life, namely, Motion. Substance
and the Motion, which constitutes the highest life, we must
consider as two genera; for even though they form a unity, they
are separable to thought which finds their unity not a unity;
otherwise, it could not distinguish them.
Observe also how in other things Motion or life is clearly
separated from Being- a separation impossible, doubtless, in True
Being, but possible in its shadow and namesake. In the portrait
of a man much is left out, and above all the essential thing,
life: the "Being" of sensible things just such a shadow of True
Being, an abstraction from that Being complete which was life in
the Archetype; it is because of this incompleteness that we are
able in the Sensible world to separate Being from life and life
from Being.
Being, then, containing many species, has but one genus. Motion,
however, is to be classed as neither a subordinate nor a
supplement of Being but as its concomitant; for we have not found
Being serving as substrate to Motion. Motion is being Act;
neither is separated from the other except in thought; the two
natures are one; for Being is inevitably actual, not potential.
No doubt we observe Motion and Being separately, Motion as
contained in Being and Being as involved in Motion, and in the
individual they may be mutually exclusive; but the dualism is an
affirmation of our thought only, and that thought sees either
form as a duality within a unity.
Now Motion, thus manifested in conjunction with Being, does not
alter Being's nature- unless to complete its essential character-
and it does retain for ever its own peculiar nature: at once,
then, we are forced to introduce Stability. To reject Stability
would be more unreasonable than to reject Motion; for Stability
is associated in our thought and conception with Being even more
than with Motion; unalterable condition, unchanging mode, single
Reason-Principle- these are characteristics of the higher sphere.
Stability, then, may also be taken as a single genus. Obviously
distinct from Motion and perhaps even its contrary, that it is
also distinct from Being may be shown by many considerations. We
may especially observe that if Stability were identical with
Being, so also would Motion be, with equal right. Why identity in
the case of Stability and not in that of Motion, when Motion is
virtually the very life and Act both of Substance and of Absolute
Being? However, on the very same principle on which we separated
Motion from Being with the understanding that it is the same and
not the same- that they are two and yet one- we also separate
Stability from Being, holding it, yet, inseparable; it is only a
logical separation entailing the inclusion among the Existents of
this other genus. To identify Stability with Being, with no
difference between them, and to identify Being with Motion, would
be to identify Stability with Motion through the mediation of
Being, and so to make Motion and Stability one and the same
thing.
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